Taxila

Three cities lie within five kilometres of each other, each built by a different empire, each abandoned when the next arrived. At Taxila in Pakistan's Punjab, you walk from Achaemenid-era ruins to Greek-planned streets to Kushan monasteries in a single morning, and the Buddhas carved in the stonework have curly hair and Hellenistic faces that belong to no single tradition.

Taxila is UNESCO-listed — an archaeological complex near Rawalpindi spanning a thousand years and more of habitation across three successive city sites — Bhir Mound of the Achaemenid sixth century BCE, Sirkap of the Indo-Greek second century BCE, and Sirsukh of the Kushan first century CE. The Taxila Museum keeps Gandhara sculpture of the very first rank: Buddhas with Apollo-style curls, togaed bodhisattvas, imagery forged where Greek, Persian and Indian traditions met. The Jaulian monastery preserves stone teaching halls and cells from what may have been one of the world's earliest universities — tradition holds that Chandragupta Maurya studied here, and Ashoka governed Taxila as viceroy before he took the imperial throne.